YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK

State denies dumping sick kids into nursing homes

Disabled girl died hours after being separated from mother

Published: 12/07/2012 at 12:29 AM

(Miami Herald) Florida’s top health administrator told lawmakers in at a Senate committee meeting Wednesday she was “enraged” by “sensational” reports that her agency was funneling sick and disabled children into nursing homes designed for adults.

“We do not place our medically complex or medically fragile children in nursing homes,” Liz Dudek, secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration, told members of the Senate Health Policy Committee, adding that parents are given the choice of where their children live and receive care. “The last place we want children is away from their parents.”